31/08/2024

FatherSonHolySpirit the HolyTrinity that is IAMIAM has by his nature, Love, created out of nothing the Universe in which we live. The revelations of himself and his will for mankind that are made through the Scriptures are not all of them as straightforward as "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased".

Writing to the first converts in Corinth, St Paul tells them that from a worldly point of view none of them are anything special. They are nothing more than people for whom the revelation that is the Good News has been made by the Providence of God in that they were in "right place at the right time". They listened to Paul whose words had already been rejected by the wisdom of Athens and were still rejected by some of his listeners who had been brought up in the Law of Moses.

None of us has anything to boast about in worldly terms for we are all human beings born into circumstances over which we have had no control. Jesus speaks to us in words but his complete revelation is in the final three days which become the event even greater than our own awareness of being.

We cannot know the mind of God and Jesus speaks to us in parables. The Gospel in today's mass is as solid as the "Western Wall" of the temple that Jesus knew and in which he worshipped, solid in that its meaning is not at all obvious.

Over the centuries, an awful lot of time has been spent trying to assess with our personal "wisdoms" the meaning of this rock-hard parable. Sometimes I feel that I have got it, but that success soon slips away. We know that we have to do what we can with our minds. They are the tools that we receive in the providence of our births. We have to use them with integrity to search out God's will for us and we must never ignore Truth for we all live by every word that comes out of the mouth of God, especially the unpalatable.

Dear Lord, you know that I sometimes have joy in my heart when devoting my time to raising "my heart and mind to You". I hope this is not a falling away from your Truth. My sins are never forgotten by me and I hope that it is with sincerity that my fingers skip across this keyboard in recognition of your Truth and Glory. May Mary, all the angels and saints and we sinners on Earth and in Purgatory become united in prayer that unites praise of your Glory with seeking forgiveness for all the sinful failures made on Earth by our puny egos which block out your self revelations found in scripture and sometimes in our hearts. Maranatha, Come Lord, Jesus Come!

 30/08/2024

The Martyrs, whose faith is remembered by the Church today, were not the only ones killed by a State which was to claim for itself a "divine right" and whose previous ruler had committed similar atrocities against the other side only only twenty years previously, were not the only victims of the religious wars of the 17th Century. We remember too that Jesus also was killed by an alliance between Sate and Religion.

St Paul is unlike most of the other Apostles in that he was well-educated. Jesus brought about his complete conversion when he was on the first of his missionary journeys. Having taken part in the Martyrdom of Stephen, he was going to Damascus  to nip in the bud the start of belief in the Resurrection that was beginning there. 

To have been chosen for this task by the Chief Priests of the Temple tells us that Saul was known to be a learned and devout young man well able to justify the defence of the Law which was still challenged by the followers of Jesus who, although they thought had been silenced by the show of  combined priestly and secular power on Calvary, was in fact beginning to assemble  his mystical body, the Church, to continue his work of revelation, the  Love of God.

Millions of us since that moment owe the coherence of our thinking and understanding of the Good News of Scripture, Old and New to the preaching and writing of this Jew, born in Tarsus but educated in the school of Gamliel in Jerusalem.

Today he tells us that all legalism, even Baptism, is secondary in the light of the Crucifixion, the event that changes the world for ever. The notions of Ancient Greek philosophers are still prized, studied and wondered at by today's human and artificial intelligences but it is the sound of hammers on nails going through living human flesh that still reverberates throughout the Universe.

The material world in which all human life takes place has convinced many to believe that this life on earth is the limit of our beings. "What you see is what you get". All philosophy boils down to this. 

"But I say to you". The Life of Christ on Earth is the eternal real-time revelation of the true wonder of our being. The heroic deaths of Margaret Clitherow, Ann Line and Margaret Ward show us the limits to which we can go in witness to our Faith, as do those of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley thirty years previously.

Dear Lord, I thank you that I am still living with the hope you have given to all mankind. We are able to live out our lives in obedience to your will. We can all know that "life" is keeping our souls focused on FatherSonHolySpirit and that the philosophies and religions of solely material lives, although wonderfully constructed by praiseworthy men, if not founded on Your self revelation contained in Your Old and New Testaments are as much time-fillers and time-wasters as the tripe I semi-watch on TV. May I live throughout this day in the laser beam of Love that you focus on each individual. Let my Faith be strengthened by the prayers of the Martyrs whose Faith was tested by their place in your providence as is that of us all and may Mary lead the Angels and Saints in praise of and pleas for your Mercy to shower down as was the hope for rose petals of Little St Therese.

 29/08/2024

I have come to believe that the Church of the Apostles very soon lost its way on Earth and forgot that each soul needs to be open to the Holy Spirit for that is the way to be part of the Body of Christ. I have come to the age of 83 without ever reading the letters of St Paul as they appear in the New Testament. 

I have now started and am impressed by St Paul who was able to interpret the revelations of the Old Testament in the light of what he received from the original friends of Jesus and his own experience on the road to Damascus, with such faith and coherency.

Today's Gospel is straightforward history. The absolute power wielded by ancient kings and emperors tells a lot about how it could come about that in the course of history Popes and Patriarchs became worldly rulers. Herod was a real man who was able to order the instant beheading of John simply because he wanted to show that he could keep his word.

The world has always been ruled by those whose egos were their total being. Those who despise the "Golden Rule" are still, even in our "Democracies", presenting their own self-pride as the best way to govern the human societies of which they are part only because of the Providence of God. 

Millions of us have made idols of Alexander, Julius Caesar, Alaric and the like throughout the centuries. We have copied their single-minded devotion to themselves and thus, ultimately, have created a world where FatherSonHoly Spirit is mocked by the legislation of Mammon.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit at the moment of the Incarnation reveals that for mankind to live according to the will of God he has begotten a human body for himself to know what it means to be man from the inside. This is a revelation that is for all humanity to understand. 

God is saying that he loves his creation and that we can all live there without sin. Our God, as Jesus of Nazareth, shows how serious is this business of holiness in living. Mankind can live to become holy only because Son, the Word, became totally as we are to create for us a natural way to attain the new life that is supernatural for us but only natural for the wonder that is our Creator God.

Jesus emptied himself of his divine nature so that he could teach us by his completely human life that death  leads to the Resurrection of which he is the first fruits. I pray that I can fully empty myself of prideful, selfish ego to become a soul that is known and loved by FatherSonHolySpirit for Love is the very essence of God and it can ours only if we cooperate.

Dear Lord, With your Psalmist I would praise your deeds, your works for ever. My sins are still with me in this world, I can never forget them. Why is it hard for me to become sure in my being that my sins have been blotted out? The full results of my sins are known only to you. Forgive me for the harm I have done inadvertently to others. Help me to live sinlessly today. May I progress in my understanding of St Paul and be truly thankful for your guidance which you made through him. Our souls are part of our human nature and so the Mystical Body of Christ is as real as my body but not seen as it is; help me to build up the Communion of Saints and be open for all Your Mercy that is channeled by the prayers of Mary and all the Angels and Saints. May my sins and the sins of all other sinners living and dead be forgiven and may we all  witness your Final Revelation. Amen

28/08/2024

I know that Jesus is speaking to all of us as he chastises the "clergy" of his day. It must be very difficult for priests to maintain the level of awareness of their special place in God's providence as when they confect with Father, Son, Holy Spirit, the Blessed Sacrament. The acceptance of death on the cross by the Creator is the event that surpasses anything that happens within the creation and it is  that that is repeated on our altars.

No-one can know the mind of God but we all try to understand what it is we believe when we say "Our Father". We try to understand the meaning of the words that come into our minds from "I know not where". What happens in the mind of God to prompt him to confront in person the wilful misdirection of his "image and likeness"?

Sometimes I catch a glimpse of Jesus. I seem to understand that our world although made by God is not God it is a material universe that not only has physical laws that can be known and manipulated by science but is the setting for the Incarnation. 

Jesus is God within creation because the human freedom of our souls even though enhanced firstly by the care of God as IAMIAM and now FatherSonHolySpirit never makes the right choices and stupidly is overcome by the wonders of the material world.

It is hard to match the perfection that is "God" pursued by Augustine, preached by St Paul and proved by Jesus, with the deeds perpetrated by the descendants of Adam. I have always had a God who is Good without flaw as my image of FatherSonHolySpirit. But the Church has always been as flawed as were the Chosen People. 

God knows that I am loth to do so but my freedom wants me to cry out "Why, o why were Adam and Eve allowed to bring sin into creation.

Dear Lord, you know why I am again troubled in my being. Are you not all-powerful? It took centuries for you to become human in order to be able to suffer and thus create forgiveness for our sins . Twenty centuries have passed since you walked in Palestine and Mammon once again prevails on Earth. I am sickened by my own sins that I know I am weak enough to commit again given the opportunity . Let the prayers of Mary and all the saints bring grace to all sinners on earth and in purgatory and let me walk confidently following your footsteps knowing that the eternal love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is greater than any evil no matter its source.

 27/08/2024

Even in the lifetimes of the Apostles people were wondering what was delaying the return of Jesus. The Apostles had taught them that Jesus had on the third day shown himself as new life in the same damaged body that had been taken down from the cross.

The key events of the preaching that brings salvation are still death, resurrection, ascension and descent of the Holy Spirit. The New Testament is recorded history. People such as we are with the same human hopes and fears were visited by the Apostles and other missionaries who taught them about their personal encounters with the Son of God.

It is very unlikely that were some stranger to arrive at our meeting place and tell us the strange story of events that had taken place in a two months' period of time, a few years ago, in Jerusalem that we would react with anything else but the laughter of disbelief. But the Holy Spirit was with the Apostles and the Good News was accepted with confidence.

As the Church grew the constant expectation of the final appearance of "God on Earth" was disappointed. I too am one with the Thessalonians and all other believers who become disheartened when we realise that the final events of the Incarnation on earth took place within a couple of months. We have been waiting in this world for 2000 years to witness its conclusion.

I truly only know my own sins but rest in the promise of mercy. God knows that Jesus' condemnation of Scribes and Pharisees ( The worldly institutions of belief in God) can at all times have been applied to his own foundation on St Peter.

The unbodied Holy Spirit, however, is always present in the last words of Jesus to his mother, and John. We all can be part of the Church of Love, the Holy Spirit, who supported the maternal love of St Monica for her reprobate son, is still with us to guide us how to clean our beings on the inside for each of us is responsible for the one soul that we know as our own.

Dear Lord, help me to be truly sorry for my sins and to pray with sincerity the words I read in the scriptures and write at this desk. I cannot ever know You for what You are but I can strain to the depths of my being how to be in your presence to the utmost of my capabilities. To love and serve, I have to obey by avoiding sin but for this I always have the support of Mary and all the Saints. As did Augustine, I have brought unhappiness to my own mother and pray that she and all my sinful relatives alive or dead can share the grace that brings forgiveness in the Glory of God to all sinners on Earth and in Purgatory.

 26/08/2024

Paul, Silvanus and Timothy were living in the same world has had Jesus. Very much has happened since those days when Rome ruled the Mediterranean basin and all of the adjacent countries. 

The Church in Thessalonica fills  Paul, who never lost sight of "the Holy One of God" who had stopped him in his tracks when he had been hell-bent on his mission of persecution of the "deviants", who were misinterpreting "Moses and the Prophet" and denying the authority of the "Chief Priests, scribes and Pharisees",  full of thanks to God for it continues to flourish as if he had never left it.

Those who claimed the authority to know the will of God and be able to offer the sacrifices that were the duty demanded of his people were the only ones condemned to their faces by Jesus. They are a "brood of vipers"; "blind guides who shut up the gates to heaven". Not only do they not enter through those gates themselves but they also prevent others from entering.

Jesus demands that we are ruled by "Truth". "Yes" means "yes"  and that no amount of solemn protestation can change "no" to "yes". He has absolutely no time at all for the casuistry that so delighted the Pharisees of his day and which has enabled many who should know better to lead us into temptation "who am I to judge?" in this modern world.

We have never been left alone in the world by God. Each individual human being is known personally by "Our Father". Everyone of us is a person known as a potential friend by the Son of FatherSonHolySpirit. We are always living in the sight of God. Jesus offered only love and mercy to all the personal sinners he encountered. 

All of us know our own hypocrisy and we can only hope that "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" applies to all sinners, even Pharisees for it is mankind that refuses the friendship offered time and time again to the chosen people and to you and me each moment that we are living. 

It is for my sake that Jesus offered up his life on the cross as the perfect sacrifice. He created once and for all within material creation the only means of its Salvation.

Dear Lord, I have learnt much as I ponder your word and the sins of my lifetime. I am sure that "Lord, Lord" that does not reveal itself in deeds is the "unforgiveable sin". May the remaining steps of my life stay upon your revealed, Way Truth and the Life and to always get the "plank out of my own eye" before witnessing the great hypocrisies of the past and in others living today. I am hoping that although I still have far to go my steps are focused on the Vision of your Glory that is your Resurrection. I have the faith to believe that Mary, John, and all the Saints, Father Dominic Barberi are united in prayer for me and all sinners offered to FatherSonHolySpirit in the Safety from Sin that it is the eternal joy of Heaven Amen.

 25/08/2024

Our first commitment to know, love and serve was made on our behalf by our God-Parents at our Baptisms. 

This morning Joshua has gathered the tribes of the chosen people to decide whether or not to place their trust in the Lord. Each of us knows in our heart whether or not we are truly committed to the faith we profess. It is very easy for me to say "Yes Lord" but do I show by my life any faith except these words with which I begin each day, but what difference does belief in God make to my way of life?

Today's advice to the married men who have become believers has brought, in recent times, further tribulation to the memory of St Paul. Sex is the most difficult of bodily functions for us to control. It is also one of the most beautiful, so beautiful that in the purity of true love it can be considered sacramental. In marriage the man and woman confer this sacrament upon each other. It is so beautiful that it becomes the image that St Paul uses to preach the unity of the Church with Jesus its head.

I have always found the nuptial imagery that is sometimes used to emphasise the unity of Jesus, Mary and the Church very hard to handle. I have always had a vivid imagination and so prefer to know the significance rather than the actual images of e.g. the Song of Songs.

I suppose that St Paul's attitude to women is a sign of his times, but it must also be noted that he presents men with the stark reminder that they are to use Christ as the model of how to use their authority in their families. This is true for all ages and cultures.

Christ has to be the model for all human behaviour. He is sinless. We too can live sinlessly for the Word has become true man. He has experienced  living in the same material universe, on our planet, begotten not made so that he can become the fount of all Sacraments. "Intolerable, Lord, let me not listen to this, what complete nonsense" thought many of his own disciples when he promised his own flesh as the new Bread from heaven.

During my life-time I have often been reminded of St Peter's response to Jesus' question. I thank Father, Son and Holy Spirit that it is this response that has shaped my life and enabled me to live with hope that the mercy of our Ever-greater God can purge me of the sins that have disgraced my life and added to the pains of Calvary.

Dear Lord help me to be more productive today than yesterday. Let me not waste the time that I still have to receive your grace to prepare myself for your eternity. May the prayers of Mary and all the saints be united with those of all sinners on earth and in purgatory. May hardened sinners stop and take stock of where they are in their lives and find the grace that you offer to us all. Help me to be a sincere sign of your Love and thus attract my family into acknowledging that salvation, eternal life, was won for us all on the hill outside the city walls. Forgiveness is waiting for each one of us. We only have to ask. Amen

 24/08/2024

The main characteristic of my life at the moment is that I am alive in my body. It is deteriorating but I am still  a complete human whose mind is as aware as it ever was. I can follow the different items of John's vision but have to force myself to really believe that the vision is as true as the real world experience of Nathaniel.

Bartholomew is known from all eternity as the man in the fig-tree, seen before the historic event of his being welcomed by Jesus. Jesus is not a spiritual entity. He is "begotten not made". He is a real body, mind and soul. It is a real human body that bleeding real blood hangs on the cross and breathes his last breath. 

His human life has been more joyful than any of us in that he lived as completely sinless man in the midst of a sinful world. The pain of his death is beyond all our possible imaginings just as God's eternity as revealed in "visions" is not the reality that in its fullness can be known only by Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

My "I" is aware of all bodily sensation and is conscious that something more than the underused computer, my brain, is within my skull. John and Nathanial have both been called to be Apostles. They have been chosen to bear witness to the Truth that is the Eternal Life of our souls within  the Kingdom of God.

I thank Father, Son and Holy Spirit for the wonder of my being but humbly kneel before him devastated by the sinfulness with which both I and God know I have lived my life on earth. 

Dear Lord help me to live today without sin. Help me believe your Word without any filtration by false scepticism. I must have been saved on hundreds of occasions by the intervention of your messengers, angels who are our unseen allies in the battle of human life. Help me to not babble and to know that the "Our Father" is the spiritual road map for the way, the truth and the life and that the Hail Mary is all the additional support we need for your side is ever open to allow your mercy to engulf  the whole world. Let me sincerely beseech that mercy for all sinners here and also those in Purgatory. Amen

 23/08/2024

                                                    "Hear the Word of the Lord". 

This morning there are millions of people who will awaken to begin their daily lives. Many of us will begin our morning in prayer. Some of us have the assurance that they have been born into the "chosen race" and their prayer is "Listen O Israel". Others have taken complete control of their lives and literally tried to abandon possessions and family to walk in the footsteps of the Incarnate Son of God, they begin each day in communal prayer. 

In my own case, however, I am living as part of the world aware that my being is calling out to God, that it has always done so with sincerity but also aware that I am tangled up in  "the signs of my times."

I was born on the winning side of World War 2 and see the losers, during my childhood the personification of evil, prosper far more greatly than we have done. I was brought up to understand the Catholic Church and its Clergy as God on Earth. Homosexuality was to be abhorred. People of a different racial mixture than Englishmen would be "happier in their own countries". It was only natural that men should be more important than women.

Today I am aware that throughout my life there has always been an awareness of my soul and wish for holiness. I have often disregarded this longing to become sinless and pushed it aside with a "Yes, but not now". As always I am mystified and entangled by the "signs of the times". 

How is it that promulgators of homosexuality have become leaders in Church and State? How is it that the Vicar of Christ spends more time before TV cameras than he does in prayer. How is it that most of the Methodists Chapel of my youth have become converted into other uses than worship? How is it that Jews have returned to the Holy Land to profane the soil, God's sign of the covenant, with yet more innocent blood?

I wake each morning, slowly overcome the remains of sleep and always forget to thank God that I am still in the world although it will bewilder me much more throughout the day. That comes later as I try to connect  Ezekiel's valley with with Jesuitical Pharisees. "Dem bones, dem bones, dem dried bones" was the refrain of a song popular in my youth "All you need is love" came somewhat later but both were preceded by "Give thanks to the Lord for he is good".

Dear Lord help me to avoid the sins of the world, flesh and devil. Help me to know love and serve . Let me be open to faith, hope and charity. Let me walk on the way truth and life. Let me know Father, Son and Holy Spirit as one Almighty and let my body mind and soul be tuned into the Love that is your awareness of all creation. May these prayers become united with those of all the world, Mary and all the Saints as a plea for forgiveness for sinners both on Earth, with me entwined in the "sign of the times" and those bearing patiently their punishment in the "the sign of eternity," Purgatory.

 22/08/2024

The formal Liturgy of the Church, its celebration of salvation, is the bones around which I try to find the living body of Christ. It is only Jesus who can become the living heart of flesh that replaces my sinful heart of stone. The peace that can be found in our beings comes only from God but we have to prepare for it. 

We have freedom of choice. That is why the human world although created by FatherSonHolySpirit is not the  "holy place" that God intends it to be. Every human soul that has ever lived, is living or will be born into living, has as its birthright the choice to know, love and serve or to decline the invitation.

Jesus, true man, lived just as we do in an era whose "background noise" civilization, human history, philosophy, was blocking out the awareness of their reason for living from the "chosen people". To reawaken the faith of his listeners he often spoke in parables, a style of communication recognised by the culture of his time and place, which we too can understand.

The Fathers of the Church after the Apostles studied the words of the Old Testament and searched for the symbolic meaning of the stories told by Jesus. Sometimes they find a difficulty. Today's is that only one person is cast out of the "Church" that is their interpretation of the "Wedding Feast" of the parable. 

The lack of wedding garment has been interpreted variously as "lack of Holy Spirit", "disobedience of the "Commandments", even failure "to put on Jesus Christ". We  all learn from the wisdom of the past but live in the present and Jesus today speaks to each one of us, telling that we are each responsible for the state of our own souls and that we cannot "hope away" the alternative reality to eternal happiness.

Dear Lord You know that your Apostles, Evangelists, Church Fathers, Schoolmen and Theologians have left us with billions of words that sometime confuse but can always help each one of us who applies himself to them. Study can become a substitute for prayer and a source of pride. Mary, Queen of Heaven lived only in the gratitude that she had been chosen and seems not to have added anything personal to the remembrances of you in our Gospels. Her life, without sin, is what you offer to us all and it is through her perfection that the Incarnate You chose to become the Sacramental Grace you continue to pour out onto a largely ungrateful world. May her prayers and those of all the Saints continue to bring forgiveness to us their sinful brethren here on Earth and those who are gratefully undergoing punishment in Purgatory.

 21/08/2024

I have in this last half of my life tried, to put my soul directly into the care of God. 

He knows that I am not claiming for myself a special relationship, a direct line to Father, Son and Holy Spirit but that I have become more and more aware that the Church, Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant has been playing a less and less noticeable role in the era in which I live and that we believers have to seek how to to do the will of the Father by reversing this trend.

As this realisation grew in my mind, I searched throughout the history of the Church for a "golden-age" which could be an exemplar of what the Church of today must become to be the living "body of Christ" here on Earth in the twenty-first century.

The Orthodox and Roman Churches are the very first human organisations and are even today used as models by Management Gurus of how to grow successful human institutions. The first believers were those who filled the empty spaces of their beings with the words of Love promulgated first of all by those who had known Christ personally during his time on Earth, those who had hidden during the horror of Calvary.

The Apostles had always understood that they were following a prophet and after the Resurrection they came to know Jesus as Son of FatherSonHolySpirit but, they had also always been aware that his "Kingdom" would require servants, court officials, stewards in this world. We know that, human as they are, they became annoyed with each other by seeking, on the quiet, privileged positions for themselves in this predominately worldly anticipated "kingdom".

IAMIAM has sought over centuries to din into us, his people, that his creation is wonderful but that he is infinitely evergreater. He is one being mystically three persons. We his image and likeness have to bow before him to receive the "Love" that we can share among each other. Jesus is the servant who demonstrates the greatest Love possible on earth.

Ezekiel is commissioned to chastise the priests of his generation. I know that there have been millions of holy clergy within the Church over the centuries but that their holiness has been rather in spite of the institution than as the result of it for the Truth of Christ is also in the Church in spite of the worldliness of the institution. With his last words from the cross Jesus put John and Mary into a filial relationship that is the Church of Love, a New Holy Family that will be with us to the end of time. It is to be found in the Institution but is not confined to it.

Dear Lord, Help me know your truth and never evade it. Let me not be "clever" but let me be open to your grace so that I can understand all the discrepancies that your Church has presented throughout her life as the "signs of the times". I hope that Mary and all the Saints  seek for me the grace  that I know that I have to rely on to achieve for me a place on earth in the New Holy Family which will help me receive the rewards of your merciful Love. May St Pius X pray for me and all the souls of sinners here on Earth and in Purgatory

 20/08/2024

Our possessors of great wealth, our manipulators of matter and of natural biology,  our advocates of fornication are all condemned today in the first readings and we too for we are also beneficiaries of wealth, science and birth control even though we are not promulgators of the same.

We have to face up to the fact that IAMIAM in the first two readings of today's mass reveals himself to be Justice untempered by Mercy. Those who become swollen with pride. Those who have no time for God. Those who attribute their success in this World to themselves. Those who treat their positions in this world as their own divine-right, all the slaves of Mammon are  univocally condemned by God, speaking through the mouth of his Prophet Ezekiel.

The responsorial taken from Deuteronomy also reveals the seriousness with which we should listen to God's revelation of himself for we also know that God does not change even though there is a difference in emphasis in the words of his prophets.

"But I say to you". I hear this short sentence every time that Jesus clarifies himself as the final  word of God's revelation of himself, IAMIAMFatherSonHolySpirit speaks as the one God and tells us that we do not have to go away sad as did the rich young man.

Today I enjoy a standard of living that is higher than those enjoyed by the rich of previous eras. The poor are still with us but there are billions of us who although not rich can meet all our own material needs and still have a surplus that we can share with the poor. I do not have perfect health but I am not crippled by disease.  I am, however, aware that I am far from the moral perfection that has to be the following of Christ.

Jesus, the incarnate Word, lives to reveal in his life on Earth the perfection image/example of how to become in this world the being that we have been created to be; how to do God's will on earth. 

Even the rich, however, are given a chance to make it through the eye of the needle for Calvary has given a superabundance of Mercy to the whole world. Our Father, Son and Holy Spirit are always seeking us out and even on our death beds we can make the perfect atonement that may have saved Judas as he crashed to his self-inflicted death by act of despair.

Dear Lord, you know that I am always afraid that my sins will bring me to the pain of permanent death that is the reward of sin. Let me find in the final instruction given to Mary and John the living church of Love that never fails to keep true to you, FatherSonHolySpirit. Let me not be too afraid and be sincerely attentive to your example for living and worship in my secret room without regard for how others view me. I know that I am not alone except for when corrupted by sin. May my soul and those of all other sinners on Earth be comforted by theunceasing prayer for Mercy for us and the Holy Souls in Purgatory raised by Mary and all the saints.

 19/08/2024

I am neither a young man nor a rich one but I too feel sad that I have not been able to arrive at perfection.

I am coming to a realisation that all generations that have lived since "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church" are as imperfect in their to devotion to God as were the Jews both in the days of Ezekiel and in those of the Incarnation 500 years later.

I am living  2,500 years after the Babylonian Exile, 2000 years after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and 80 years after the attempted extermination of the Jewish race. I am still asking the same question to Jesus as did the "rich young man". A questioned asked then by one Jew to another.

I have been guided in my response by the teaching of the prophets interpreted and completed by Jesus, Son of FatherSonandHolySpirit. I know that the Resurrection, Jesus, is the "Eternal Life" sought by the rich young man. I know that his "chosen people" somehow failed to honour their part in IAMIAM's original covenants.

We have lived on earth, however, with the Sacramental presence of FatherSonandHolySpirit guarded by his Institution founded on St Peter for 2000 years and are still more like the "rich young man" than the Jesus from whom he sought guidance.

The people of the Old Testament failed to accept "loving kindness" from the Lord. Our Church has over the centuries accumulated vast wealth to become "worldly" on Earth and thus weakened its  authority to preach the Way, the Truth and the Eternal Life which is why we have to know, love and serve in perfection in this world for the promised happiness of the next is indeed the Eternal Life for which we have to abandon all faith in material goods and worldly triumphs.

Our God on the cross died, spat upon, bloodily scourged, in naked humiliation and we are lead by an Institution whose chief priest dared for centuries to wear a triple crown.

Dear Lord, you know what I am. The shame of my sins is always with me. I know that grace is not a limited allotment for each time I fail my hope is always reignited by your free gift of Love which revealed its glory in your acceptance of ignominious death to make it possible for sin to be wiped clean. Help your people on earth to truly renounce their attachment to the material world of Mammon and let the Church you founded to be in but not of this world at last admit it lost its way when it became a Power in this world. May Mary through whom God became Man, continue in her care of all mankind and lead the saints in the continuous prayer that brings Mercy to us sinners on earth and those living souls in Purgatory. Amen

 18/08/2024

It is quite easy for us today to follow in the mass readings the revelations that have guided us for nearly 2000 years into the understanding that supports our recognition of the "signs of the times", our place in the  Providence of God.

We are intelligent beings but only when we use our brains to accept and follow the guidance that is recorded in Old and New Testaments. The wisdom  of the first reading opens up our beings to perceive the bounty that is being aware of Our Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the joy of prayer revealed in the Psalm.

In Ephesus, the newly born Christians are living in the midst of pagan splendour and face all the same temptations that dominate our so-called "post-christian" civilisations in these times. He tells them and us to do more than just sing the praises of God, our words must become part of our being, lodged in our hearts.

St John who, has had more than thirty years to reflect on the deeds he witnessed when he walked with Jesus in Galilee; more than thirty years of caring for the Mother of Our Lord, writes with the truth in words that are directly from Jesus.

"I am the living bread come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever and the bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world".

The Resurrection and the sealing by the Holy Spirit complete  the teaching in this world of the Incarnate Word, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. John and Mary knew this in their hearts. They had survived in this world always aware of the Mystical Body of Christ and we can still join with that New Holy Family in their eternal prayer even though we are far from the "outward signs of inward grace".

It is only God who knows the reason for the Incarnation. His foundation on St Peter has also not ever been true to his "My Kingdom is not of this world" declared before Pilate. It is only God who knows when he will return to Earth. I can only repeat in hope the cry of the first Christians. "Maranatha Lord. Come Lord Jesus Come".

Dear Lord, you know how I have wasted your grace throughout my lifetime. Let me atone for my sins here on Earth and then please keep a place in Purgatory open for me to undergo my deserved punishment. Help me to show by the signs of my life that I have the integrity of being that comes from doing your will and being open to your grace. May my prayers join those led by Mary present with you and all the saints in that "moment" of heavenly joy that begins in death but never ends for you our creator are God of the living and only have love for we sinners both on Earth and in Purgatory.

 17/08/2024

It is impossible for God to deceive. What we see is indeed reality. It is possible for man to not only deceive but also to ignore. We can be sure even in our ignorance, however, that we cannot deceive our Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Infinite Love, the Trinity is completely aware of everything that is real. From nano-particle to the most distant of stars, everything is known to the Father. 

The Old Testament reading for today emphasises that we should respond to God's revelation of himself completely; return his Love for us with the obedience that shows our love for him. 

The psalmist sings out the pure joy that we can experience when without sin we are filled with the Holy Spirit and "know, love and serve" in our inmost being which is known only to God, Mary and all the Saints. This is our natural state of being for it is a full-life as the image and likeness of  God who saw that his creation is "good" and it is filled with the Holy Spirit brought to us by Jesus' completion of the will of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In the Gospel the disciples are preventing the children from milling around Jesus. Jesus, however, is pleased to acknowledge and welcome their presence for they are innocent souls. 

One of the most distressing sights of my life has been to witness the guilt of the English Hierarchy at the Judicial Enquiry into child sexual abuse, blustering in the face of the cross-examination as to their roles in the protection of the guilty by cover-ups masterminded by themselves. 

Those Bishops were "dragged before tribunals" but they did not receive any of the support promised by Jesus to disciples who in the course of their missions would face accusations in courts of law. They also did not receive any public punishment for the harm they have done not only to the children but also to the Institution through which they claim to serve the Vicar of Christ on Earth.

Dear Lord, you know how sinful I am and how I seek to atone. Help me not to be overcome by the weakness of the institution you founded on St Peter. You always chose the weak and the lowly  as examples of how to do your will and yet your Church quickly stepped into the worldly, both in east and west, power vacuums created by the long drawn-out collapse of the Roman Empire. Help me be aware of the grace witnessed by the three Marys and Saint John as it poured out of your pierced side on Calvary and let my faith be in your promise to be with us always even to the end of time. May my prayers uttered in my private room but recorded on this machine join those of Mary and all the saints that all sinners on Earth and in Purgatory choose forgiveness and know that it is we who have created our own need for punishment and reparation.

 16/08/2024

Each of us has to accept the Scriptures for what they are, the record of the revelation made by our Creator of himself at various times in the history of mankind. We have always treated these revelations as revelations of the "Supernatural" . 

It sometimes, however, seems to me that they should not be considered to be anything other than natural for it is God who created us and shapes our being. We are not abandoned alone in the world to make of it what we can as was the baby girl in the first reading.

Our Father was not "passing by" and noticed us, by chance the unwarted and discarded child. He is aware in his eternity of every moment of time and of all that it contains.  The mystery of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is a creative loving kindness that by its nature creates from nothing, new created yet free individual human life that can chose to be informed by his revelation.

Reality is not only determined by the scope of our senses but is also God and our souls  longing for him. We all have totally natural souls that are all created equally to enjoy the Eternal Glorious Freedom of the Sons of God. 

The material discoveries of empirical science have bedazzled our being as did her awareness of her beauty,  Jerusalem. We have become infatuated by our awareness of our "Knowledge". It is hard for our children to grow up in a world that even denies that "male" and "female" are true categories of created being. 

Jesus came at a specific time in the history of the world. His chosen people had, yet again failed him, and since that time the overpoweringly human institution that was the Church founded on St Peter has many times proved itself to be more of this world than part of "the kingdom that is not of this world".

Jesus brings the first phase of revelation to its completion. He will never leave those who respond within their hearts, love answering love, abandoned in their own blood. He knew the faults of the world and the response of the Chosen People as a human being who confronted opposition and disbelief each day of his mission. He promised that he would return from the Father and confirmed us with the Holy Spirit.

Since then, we have changed the material face of the earth beyond recognition but we have to live lives that proclaim our faith in Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Our Father is not impressed by anything that is material. He is looking for us to recognise only his Love and to live lives that openly declare this to all others. He wants to find Faith in his Love on Earth when he returns. We have to become a  people who look for and do the will of Father, Son and Holy Spirit during our lives on Earth.

Dear Lord, help me to use words to offer myself to you. You know all that is happening in my head at this moment. That I am now and have had a past. Let me make right choices for the future and be sincerely sorry for all my offences. May Our Lady the only complete body mind and soul with you in what we call the perfection of bodiless after-life, heaven, lead all the saints in their shared moment of ultimate joy that proclaims their praise of God and their pleas for the Mercy that forgives all sinners on Earth and in Purgatory. Amen.

 15/08/2024

Textual scholars of the Bible supported by theologians tell us that St. John's Book of Revelation belongs to a class of late Judaic Literature that is termed Apocalyptic. This doesn't help me at all to understand the vision described by John.

St Paul even at his most ecstatic writes plain truth in plain words and his words make plain sense. Today he is writing to Corinthians of the first century. He and his listeners are expecting the end-times to be soon with them. We know that their expectations were not met and we are still living in Christian Hope.

Our Lady was born sinless. She was created as were our first parents to do the will of God and be the embodiment of his image of perfect humanity. She was part of God's eternal plan of mercy for his backsliding chosen ones.

The Word became incarnate from her human being, her flesh, her womb and for nine months she is literally, Theotokos. For thirty years she alone in all creation knew God first as a human child and then as a young man who during the next three years, completed in mortal time the revelation  of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

At the foot of the Cross she witnessed the completion of the Eternal Mercy and with John accepted the responsibility to care for us all with the human love that in her perfection was the image and likeness of the Divine Love that forgives us all when we too know, love and serve.

Of course Mary joined her son without the need for death for she is how God intends us all to be. I have much to atone for and expect the Mercy of God to be tempered by His Justice before the day this human body has to answer for how I lived during my time on Earth.

                 Holy is his name and his Mercy reaches from age to age for those who fear him.

                                   

 14/08/2024

The "visions" that were seen by all the prophets were all recorded in words. It is the power of words to inspire the imagination of man that impress us with their magic. That was true for all of mankind up to the middle of the twentieth century. But...... 

Today far more wondrous visions can be produced by a flick of a switch in the homes of most of the world. Images on our screens capture our imaginations and mostly lead us to believe in the ultimate power of mankind. Visions of "Glory" are a dime a dozen; who is going to read the words of  long dead prophets?

The Gospel for today is much more naturally realistic. The situation is ordinary life. How do we deal with malefactors? 

The Incarnation is not a vision. It is ordinary life. It is a historical event of human time. Son of Father, Son and Holy Spirit divested himself of divinity to be born as are all human beings. His first breath became a squall when smacked into life by the wife of the innkeeper, maybe one of the shepherds, ? We don't know who performed this necessary service for that helpless one who is the creator of all that is our universe and our being, but we are sure that he did begin to breathe as do we all.

Jesus teaches us that we have to confront misbehaviour whenever we encounter it. We chastise and are chastised by our children. Our societies try to govern by the rule of Law. What can I do when the Law has lost its moral compass? What can I do when the Church, the community of the people of God has always been flawed in its assertions about itself based on misinterpretations of today's Gospel?

Jesus did not crown St Peter with a triple crown. When we do gather consciously in the presence of God we have only one thing to ask of the Father. We have to ask for his loving care and grace for all of us to do his will on earth. Jesus taught us the Lord's Prayer and it is the only prayer we need to follow Jesus in his life that was lived totally for others. St Maximillian pray for us.

Dear Lord,  today we remember another saint of our times. There are people still living who knew St Maximillian and witnessed his choice. Most of your people do not have the opportunity to make such a courageous choice. We do all have the opportunity to seek out your mercy by prayerful recollection that we are not the stuff of cinematographic unreality but we have the reality of being that you have given to us, Help me this day to continue to live knowing your mercy bolstered by the hope that I will not offend you in anything I do or think. May Mary lead all the saints in their prayers for all sinners on Earth and in Purgatory and may we all never forget that it is the sin of humanity that crucified the living body of Jesus and that the same body became not a vision but the reality of the Resurrection; your Promise to all of us.

 13/08/2024

Ezekiel's acceptance of the Word of God is total. He has a hunger to know that he is doing the "will of God" and consumes the scroll with delight. It is "as sweet as honey" even though it does contain "lamentations, wailings and moanings". The "Word of God" is always "Good News" especially when it reveals our ""secret" sinfulness. We cannot live lives targeted on holiness, the righteousness on Earth that is pleasing to Father, Son and Holy Spirit, without following the "road-map" that is revealed in the scriptures.

The Psalmist is also overcome by the joy that is his when he receives grace and recognises that he is secure in the Love that comes from God. He needs nothing more than to bathe in the delight that it is to be known by, and to know God.

Long after Ezekiel and the Psalmist, the Incarnate Word, the sweet delight known by both of them, walks in the Holy Land. He is "true man" amongst his fellows. He is the "only begotten" Son who has first, as do we all, lived known only to his mother and after the Nativity in the obscurity of Nazareth. He has come because the "Chosen People" have not lived up to the Love lavished on them by the Father.

I can see in my own life the same pattern of devotion followed by backsliding that is displayed by the chosen people in the Old Testament. This is displeasing to God. We know that God is far greater than any human emotion that may sway us. We have to bow before him but he has created us as responsible beings who can implement from within his creation the Loving Will that is the origin of the "Big Bang" that still reverberates throughout the Universe and he knows when his will is not followed.

The twelve named "New Chosen Ones" who are going to be called "Friends" by the Son of God have accepted God's call for what it is but are all too human and the "What's in it for me " of human self-hood has to continually be put down. 

Poor Judas fails completely,  it is the will of Father, Son and Holy Spirit that the our sins can only be washed away by the "Blood of the Lamb" but Peter and the others who were lost to sight of during the trial of Jesus were renewed by the Resurrection.

Today the worldliness of the disciples is evident. Jesus, our relationship with God is always about freedom of will, does not tell them point blank that before possible rank therein, we have to think about how to enter "The Kingdom".

The great irony of the Church founded on St Peter is that it is she that has become the model for all worldly institutions. She was the very first institution with a management structure and the original model of all "Mission Statements". 

Jesus, however, during his trial, stated that "My Kingdom is not of this world" and in today's Gospel tells us that to enter his Kingdom we have to become totally devoted to "Our Father" who is the Loving Mercy that can find and forgive all sinners, with the total devotion of a little child not with any managerial competence.

Dear Lord, you know all my sins and that I am as penitent as I have ever been. I know that I am a disappointment to my self when I sin, Let me become more aware of the actual pain you endured as you prepared for your" time" in the garden and carrying the cross. Clear out the rubbish from my memory and let me welcome the cleansing of my soul that comes with forgiveness. May my prayers join those of Mary and all the saints that all sinners can be open to the Loving Mercy that is the being of the Kingdom. Amen.

 12/08/2024

Both the Old Testament and the New have moments when they speak of the Glory of God. For many of us throughout the centuries these reports of visions were how we tried to picture God's actual "being".  

The Incarnation means that Jesus, true man and true God, could become the visible focus of our worship but even the New Testament has tried to describe the "Glory" of the Nativity and Transfiguration. The last book, Revelations, is solely concerned with picturing the Kingdom of Heaven and there have been many who have been captivated by the details of this vision.

The man, Jesus, only begotten Son, lived a human life in this world, an infinitesimal speck of matter in the Universe. He lived exactly in the same way as do all of us. From conception to the tomb he is true man which is to say a true mammal, a being created out of the Eternal Glory that he loves as Son of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

God has always believed in us and knows that we are capable of producing great wonders. He also knows that we are all material beings that can enjoy the delights of this world which we are ravaging more and more to produce a wealth that is leading us into deeper and deeper temptation to believe only in ourselves. 

Jesus is the perfect sinless human being that is formed to have the freedom to live and govern itself into the imitation of God that we have to be in order to complete God's vision of us. We can, all of us, complete our lives in God's Holiness but only if we accept the teaching for which the Crucifixion is only the beginning.

Dear Lord, help me to live out this day in a prayerful reality ready to do your will. Jesus walked through the dust of Palestine humbly teaching the men who could not completely understand his message until the Glory of the Resurrection overpowered all of them. Help me to remember how True God and True Man by his miraculous powers, gave us the signs pointing to the Resurrection as  the final reality of this world for us all and that all the work of preparation has already been done for us. We only have to rise above the tide of the materialism of this world, captivating as it may be, and open our hearts to the grace that flowed out of the side of Christ Crucified on Calvary. May Mary and all the saints help us all on earth to persevere in doing your "Will on earth as it is in heaven" and in Purgatory accepting the Justice of punishment, tempered with Mercy that results from our own faithlessness. Amen

 11/08/2024

These jottings are the "stream of consciousness" that is permanently present when I am not asleep.I am always open to the possibility that my response to the "Mass Readings" for each day misses the point and that what seems to be "Eternal Truth" to me is the product of minds as disturbed as I know my own to be. I do know that mine is not the only consciousness and that there are many others outside my personal  "thinking being".

Sometimes, as does Elijah in today's first reading, I find my own "furze bush" and determined to go no further, "plonk" myself down and wish that I was dead. 

The unseen presence of God touched the soul of Elijah as it does into the souls of all of us, and he awoke to continue his life as a "servant of God". We can call this a "supernatural" event but it is "natural" for God to care for his creation and to confirm the reality of his natural Love for the outcome of his "creative being" he took for him the "natural step" of "Incarnation" into the created reality of time.

God took Elijah to the Holy Mountain. I am still within my own skull but I have joined the "stream of reflection" that has been the natural response of mankind to God's natural but unseen presence.

St Paul tells us that we are creatures who are responsible for our own behaviour. We have to accept that each one of us has to treat others with respect even in the most trivial of social interactions.

In the Gospel, Jesus our begotten, naturally human God, preaches that in him we can see the, for us supernatural, Love that is the "nature" of Father, Son and Holy Spirit .

Elijah could not hide, even under a furze bush, from the call that is the natural response of God to all his creatures. Death will come naturally but not before we are all given the opportunity to answer this call by becoming the beings that, in the eyes of their creator, are good.

I know that I have all too often been ready to ignore and resist the reality of God's call. How can we resist "Christ who loving us as did gave himself up in our place as a fragrant offering to God."? We should all be ready to sing with the psalmist "Glorify the Lord with me, together let us praise his name."

Dear Lord, You know and guide me in your ways. Help me to be truthful in all my dealings with my fellow humans and let me overcome the human self-centredness that is destroying your creation. All of these words are from my need to be forgiven for the great sins of my life. Let me become more convinced of your mercy so that I can find peace in my heart even in the days remaining for me on this earth. May my prayers join those of Mary and all the saints in praise of your Glory and pleading for forgiveness for all sinners on earth and in the sanctuary that is Purgatory. Amen

 10/08/2024

It must have been very difficult for the members of the congregations that became the first generations of the Church to survive after the deaths of their founders left them on their own to continue to live aware of Christ living within them.

The first Christians were undoubtedly sustained by the Holy Spirit filling each of them with the belief that what their founders had witnessed in Jerusalem was undoubtedly the revelation of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the conviction that Jesus would return from the Father to save them at the, for them imminent, end of time. 

The Apostles in Jerusalem knew that Jesus had taught them to live out their lives in accordance with the revealed will of the Father. They knew that they had been touched by God and that they had a special duty to teach the whole world what their beloved Rabbi had taught to them.

They had to teach that each individual has an unseen inner being that is "not of this world". Jesus had made it abundantly clear that his whole being in this world had been to help our "human being" witness within this mortal life the Love that Father, Son and Holy Spirit has for each "image and likeness" that is our spiritual self.

By the time of the martyrdom of St Lawrence the Christians in all regions of the Roman Empire lived in communities of believers. The "Kingdom which is not of this world" had taken the first steps to becoming the institution that at first threatened Caesar and then fought unceasingly to be the supreme power in this mortal world.

Throughout my life I have been asking myself why it is that I have continued in sin even after sincerely pleading for forgiveness knowing that Jesus has reconciled us with the Creator.

I have come to realise, however, that what I can learn from the history of God's Providence is that first Jews and now Christians have not been true to the revelations of Love for his creation made by IAMFather,SonandHoly Spirit.

It is not God's will that his foundation on St Peter should have become so immersed in this world that its foundational role of caring for souls has long been forgotten and untrusted by so many of us who should be joining together to celebrate the life of Christ within us in this world so as to prepare us for the eternal life to come. 

Thank God that I am able to use this unseen technological miracle at my fingertips to join the unseen Mystical Body that is Christ still present in our Souls on Earth, in Heaven and in Purgatory but only if we open ourselves to him.

Dear Lord, only you can know that I am still the sinful being who is still sincerely seeking to do your will and avoid sin. May my soul today focus on its own reality which is life as a worshipping being in the immensity of your perfection and loving awareness of us all. May the soul of Sean and all the deceased find a place open for them in your forgiveness and may their souls and the souls of all the departed rest in peace until your final coming into your Universe. May Mary John and all the saints continue to add our prayers to theirs who did not succumb to  Devil, World or Flesh and may the Holy Souls wholeheartedly acknowledge the fact that it is their own sins that can be forgiven by your loving mercy. It is Christ Crucified who pays the price for our wickedness.

 09/08/2024

Today we can join our prayers with those of Edith Stein and all other victims of European self-centredness which has produced, under the guidance of the Catholic Church, so much evil throughout History.

The Church has always been part of the Empires and Kingdoms that are the inglorious part of human history since the time Peter followed Paul to the Rome  from whose centre all roads led to the very limits of its Empire.

We the individuals, living in today's instant communication with the whole of humanity, have become as it were little empires for which the whole world can be ours at the touch of a keyboard.

St Benedicta was aware that she was blessed by God with a great intellect which she accepted with humility and accepted the Faith based on the Resurrection of Jesus, a Jew like she, a chosen one of God.

She was a Jew so the then prominent "Kingdom of this World" pursued her until she could be eliminated by their preferred method of bolstering their egos. The Nazi factories of death had all been built by men whose culture was the product of 2000 years of Christianity.

Our God knows everything. I am a puny little creature wordless in the face of the mystery that is the impossible to understand passivity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the face of so much evil that continues today.

I know that my God knows me and that it is only in this life that I can know, love and serve Him to keep my being free from the sin that is the reason for the imponderable suffering of Son on the cross. 

We are all humans, we are all guilty of sin, so why, O Lord do so many of us have to suffer in the way that millions of us have during my lifetime and others like myself remain in a quiet peace that is painless comfort but can also lead to the sinful self-centredness that brings about the loss of our souls?

Dear Lord, help me to remain  humbly on my knees and not be overcome by my self-perceived "cleverness". Nobody can challenge you but it seems to me that the slaughter of the Jews by Hitler should have been prevented. It is too much to ask my tiny mortal brain to adjust to your eternity that has no time, no beginning and no end especially when I see slaughter and assassination as the way in which modern Jews maintain their hold on land they have stolen from Palestinians. Today's Gospel makes it clear that each of our own virgin souls are responsible for our own spiritual "oil" and that we will not be able to join St Benedicta, Our Mother Mary and all the Saints in our place at your "Wedding Feast" if we do not  preserve that "oil" that is your free, but not painless, gift of merciful forgiveness.

 08/0802024

Today the life of St Dominic is celebrated by the Catholic Church so the Church in today's Liturgy celebrates its own foundation on St Peter, by Jesus .

The Church that St Dominic was born into and of which he became a stalwart was not the Church, that a thousand years before his lifetime, had hidden from Pagan persecutors and  in support of which many had died rather than apostatize.

The Church in St Dominic's times was engaged in its own persecution of non-Catholics, a "Crusade" against heretics; this was open warfare against those who would not bow down to the secular power of the Hierarchy and many were being slaughtered in the name of Papal authority. 

Did any of the Church of those days question this non-Christian sign of the times.?

The Order of Preachers founded by St Dominic is still with us and enjoys in its "poverty" the accumulated wealth of centuries. The Order is the owner of huge, almost empty, property throughout the world and as is also true about the other "Catholic Orders" the few remaining Friars viewed as shareholding owners are amongst the wealthiest individuals living today.

This is a non-Christian sign of our own times.

"Thou art Peter and on this rock I will build my Church"."Get thee behind me Satan". In both  sentences Jesus is speaking to the worldly institution that his Church very soon became. Bearing  Jesus' words in mind we have to interpret "the signs of the times" in our own age.

Our Church has lost its public moral authority. In many European countries clergy are shunned and castigated by their former parishioners. The pseudo-victory of "the devil, the world and the flesh" reveals that the Petrine foundation has got it as wrong as did the covenant breakers to whom Jesus revealed the Way. the Truth and the Life. 

Jesus cannot abandoned us but the fact that "My Kingdom is not of this world" has never been acted upon as if it were as foundational as the presentation of the Keys reveals that, yet again, we humans have not lived up to the trust that Father, Son and Holy Spirit has in us. 

"Woman behold your son, son behold your mother". John took Mary into his own home and with and by the Crucified Jesus a new Holy Family was formed. The Mystical Body of Christ that is certainly not of this world is the prayerful community formed by us in our own private rooms as together we can pray "Our Father" as taught by Jesus .

 We know that we are in communion with all the souls on Earth, in Heaven and In Purgatory who know that Jesus has defeated sin, even though the signs of our times seem to deny this,  and that sinners are forgiven as soon as they reach out for forgiveness by opening their souls to Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The authority given to Peter, does not exclude the Church of the New Holy Family, Jesus, Mary and John. Jesus did tell Peter to be mindful that what he intended for John was not Peter's to know or even question but there is no question that Our Lady and the other women remained  along with John by choice  to the bitter end on Calvary outside the city walls. The criminals and soldiers remained by force and involuntarily also witnessed the death of God Incarnate.

Dear Lord, may this day become sinless for me. Guide my thoughts that I may remain true to you and your word. Help all your priests be true to their calling and give them the grace to avoid giving scandal to their flocks. I need to feel secure in your Love and peaceful in my heart for I hope to come to the end of my life in the honesty that is always aware of my sins and of the vastness of your Mercy without which I would be nothing. Help me Lord. Amen

 07/08/2024

Today Jeremiah belies his reputation as the bringer of misfortune, the "prophet of doom". Both the first reading and the psalm proclaim the ecstatic joy that is delight in the perfection of God. We need not analyse his words, if we just listen we too can share his paen of praise, and wonder how we too can come to the same heights of joyful faith. We certainly have to let go of ourselves and become totally subjected to the will of God.

Today Jesus has left Galilee and is out of the boundaries of "Palestine". He confirms that his "Mission" is to reform the Chosen People back to the image and likeness created by Our Father. We have no idea about who the "Canaanite woman" was. She is another totally anonymously important being except in the eyes of God. 

The "house dogs" is a phrase that has received much condemnation. It is a striking image and for it to come from the lips of Jesus shocks many of us to the core. He does not call a "non-Jew" a "dog" but many worse epithets about foreigners are still being scattered around even as I think this at home in England. 

The disciples are put into an acute state of embarrassment by the clamour raised by the woman. Jesus tells us that this is "Faith". 

She is pleading out of love for her daughter who lives in torment. She is at her wits end. She has heard about Jesus doings in neighbouring Galilee. Her answer to the Jewish Prophet and his reaction to it is to be pondered by all the non-Jews of our world who ask "Why the Jews, Lord, why only the Jews". 

When we are isolated unable to look after ourselves, completely powerless, with nothing except fear in our minds in that desperate prayer of the moment before death's door closes behind us we are still able to have "Faith" in the Love of God for all his creation.

"God looked at what he had created and saw that it is good." Lord, let there be room in your new creation for all animals, especially dogs, that are perfect in their created beings with the perfection that we humans have failed to match in ours.

Dear Lord, I am embarrassed by my sentimentality. I know that my human soul is the focus of your love for all creation and I am nothing if I do not accept your guidance for how we all should live as you have shown to us in Palestine. Continue to protect me from temptation and let me begin to pray without ceasing in preparation for that moment when my Faith  becomes perfect as then, just as it was for the Canaanite woman, there is no alternative.

 06/08/2024

What I call "reflections" are my attempts to tell myself how to react to the passages from scripture that are part of the liturgy of the Catholic Church in the UK. God knows that my intentions are honest. Why would anyone try to deceive God? 

I know that I have often tried to "kid" myself. Long ago, Jesus warned us that saying "Lord, Lord" in public achieved nothing. We have to listen to the revelations made by God and act in accordance with his commandments at all times in our lives. 

I am always trying to peel the onion that is the accumulations of my being after 80+ years of life to become the sinful soul aware that I am, as much as were Adam and Eve, naked in the eyes of their creator and mine.

In today's first reading from Daniel the visionary is himself a naked mortal soul looking beyond the stars that fill our Universe into the eternity that is filled with the Glory of God. In the Gospel, Jesus takes Peter, James and John apart to show them the glory that he has as Son of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

They, of course, do not want to lose the perfect Faith of that imponderable moment, but come down from the mountain with Jesus in awestruck speechlessness but mystified by what could be the meaning of "rising from the dead".

Dear Lord I thank you for the words that I have found to help me be the man you created to live a sinless life within the fullness of your Love. I can bow my head over this keyboard in the safety that comes from your grace and is strengthened by the prayers of Mary and all the saints. Help me to avoid sin and to persevere in prayer as I am soon going to learn the meaning of "rising from the dead" as I face you "the first fruits" and your judgement of my lifetime of thoughts, words and deeds. May my prayers become part of the chorus of praise led by Mary and may my soul be cleared out of the debris created by my sinful life. I am praying to and through Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Lord hear my prayer. Come Lord Jesus Come!

 05/08/2024

The Holy Spirit completed and sealed the revelations made by the Eternal God to us in the time in which our mortality has its existence. Since those final events in the "upper-room"  "God", with all that word implies, is truly present in the Eucharist. "The Body of Christ" is with us and confected by the "actions of a priest ordained by the Holy Spirit" and will be so until the end of time.

God had already guided his people in created time since the days of Moses. The Incarnation, however, was still necessary for sin to be forgiven. The people whom IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT chose to be his witnesses before all mankind had failed in their mission but "God loved his Creation" so much that the Word was begotten of the Virgin Daughter of Israel.

In the readings for the mass of today there is conflict between two Prophets. The Psalmist pleads for the inspirational guidance of the Holy Spirit. Jesus feeds the five thousand with bread that is of this world but miraculously made available out of two loaves and 5 fishes.

The Holy Spirit is present in all congregations that come together to praise and thank God. The Jews of the Old Testament tried very hard but ultimately failed to match themselves to the righteousness that is the spiritual template of his image and likeness created from nothing by Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

We have only hints about the end of time. I see that what we have made out of "go out and teach all nations" is nowhere near the righteousness taught by Jesus and echoed in baptismal promises to which Christian mankind has never fully adhered. 

Many of the first Christians came to the end of their lives in disappointment that Jesus had not returned from the Father. I, too, although aware that no-one can know the mind of God am also disappointed, especially as I am aware that the present Church resembles more and more the worldly, superficial  religion of the Pharisees and Sadducees that Jesus condemned and has thus also failed, as did its predecessor, in its Divine Mission.

I am sure that God loves us and is always with those who open themselves to the grace that  overcomes on our behalf, the devil, the world and the flesh. The battle has already been won on Calvary but we still have to wait for the Second Coming when God will be All in All. Maranatha, come Lord, Jesus come.

Dear Lord, you know that as I wrote the above there was indeed an unvoiced complaint going through my mind. You know that many of us are still shaken in our faith by what seems to us  your inaction against the evils that are perpetrated in this world, some of which are done by those who also proclaim your name. I know that you warned us about this before you left us, but I am only a man and a sinner who has to crumble in gratitude for the joy that trying to answer your call brings to me. Help me this day to stay away from sin and to act only in faithful charity. May Mary and all the saints support all sinners both here and in Purgatory and let penitence become part of our being so that  we too will be able to "Glorify the Lord and rejoice in God our Saviour" with the "wholeness" that is also a witness of the "good" you saw in your creation.

 03/08/2024

I am always aware as I begin these "jottings" that they are not planned in anyway as to follow an overall pattern. They are literally my "thought for the day" prompted by the mass readings as published on the web by "Universalis". That is why they are always the same and yet have different words.

The prophets in the Old Testament always preached the same warnings. "Never forget that the Lord, IAMIAM, is Holy and you are to follow him into human holiness by keeping his commandments". Living on earth we, each individual one of us, has to be aware that our lives are being lived in the heart of Almighty God and that every moment we live, we have to live never forgetful of obedience to his commandments, praise of his glory and an overwhelming gratitude, words cannot express the depths of this emotion, to the  Saviour, we know as Father,Son and Holy Spirit, who has reveled himself to mere children.

I am also always aware that I have to bequeath to my family and offer to my neighbours, to the world, a picture of a human being who is not focussed only on the things of this world but is steering his life towards the Eternal Joy that can be ours if we know, love and serve Father, Son and Holy Spirit during our lifetimes.

Dear Lord, I know that I am guided in these words by a sense of devotion to you. That I have to stifle the self that dominates and no matter how squashed is always there watching and niggling away at my confidence in my own integrity. Is this the sense of scrupulosity that caused your chosen people to become a faith that lost itself in "minute pious observances" to the extent it blanketed out  the Love which you had for them? Jesus is the complete guide for humanity flourishing in adversity and is the spiritual Church, the body of Christ, of which we are all called to be a part, the presence of Father, Son and Holy Spirit with us until the end of time. We are never alone in our struggles as Mary our mother and all the Saints from the perfection of heaven continue in the love that they practised on earth to make endless pleas for the Mercy that brings pardon to us on earth and to the Holy Souls who can be happy in knowing that they are not lost and that their punishment is just.Amen

 02/08/2024

I have experienced jealousy at what has been achieved by my relatives and former school mates as adults. Envy is a very unpleasant sin and can consume the soul of the one who is tainted by it. 

We know very little of Jesus' childhood beyond that he was "subject to his mother and father". His neighbours must have forgotten the time when he was lost and then found in the Temple chatting with Scribes and Pharisees in that they were shocked by his knowledge and eloquence when he spoke in the Synagogue.

During the three years that Jesus prepared the Jews for the final revelation he had many arguments with those who really listened to his words and understood their meanings. Jesus was indeed guilty of the "blasphemies" attributed to him by the both Sadducees and Pharisees.

Jesus taught for three years. He gave signs to the Jews for three years. He completed his mission on Calvary and on the third day the Glory of a new eternal creation burst forth in Jerusalem and all our sins can be resisted and forgiven.

Jesus, the Son, of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is our eternal and infallible Way, Truth and Life. We have to devote ourselves to doing his will and resist the temptation to live only in our worldly bodies, with minds filled by the Media. We have to resist the temptation to think that by doing harm to no-one we are obeying the second commandment. Love has always got to be a positive outgoing state of being.

Jesus is the totality of Divine and Human love but during his life-time he alienated his own family and near neighbours. He never forgot the first Commandment and he teaches us to do the same. Let us all learn to love God and thus grow in his image and likeness.

Dear Lord, I suppose that Mary was hurt by the way your relatives were ashamed of you. She knew you from the moment of conception and loved you as she cared for your infant humanity. You accepted that love as do all babies who are not harmed by their parents and were happy in her arms. You, who are Lord of All in the Trinity, weakly accepted the ministrations of your mother who although conceived and born sinless herself is still a creature as are we all. At the moment of your death agony you turned to her and John and created in your dying words to humanity a New Holy Family that is the Church of the Spirit that keeps you in its heart. Help me to be true to all that you and the Institutional Church teach so that I can continue on the way, the truth and the life that you have pointed out to me. May my prayers be heard and may this day be without sin. Amen

 01/08/2024

The image that Jeremiah uses in today's first reading could be interpreted as a metaphor for a doctrine of reincarnation as it is the same clay that is reused by the potter to perfect his new vessel.

The revealed religion practised by Jews before the coming of Christ does not have a lot to say about the after-life. The priestly opinion was that this world was the place where we followed the Law. At death we enter a place/state of half-life, Sheol, where there are delights and suffering.The Pharisees increasingly preached a general resurrection and judgement at the end of time.

With the incarnation, God, IAMIAMFATHERSONANDHOLY SPIRIT, reveals that his infinite being knows/loves each particle of created matter and that the sin created by his finite image and likeness can be forgiven, but only by the Son emptying himself and becoming truly a human being and by human suffering create the forgiving grace that is not created out of nothing but out of the humiliating pain of the public death on Calvary.

Even from the earliest times of the Church men have tried to reconcile the gentle peaceful message of Jesus with the more "hard sayings" and with the reality of the  horror of his passion and death.

Human intelligence is great enough to create machines to mimic human thinking and to understand the origin of life. We all, however must never forget that "Evergreater" creates out of nothing. We humans are always within Creation. We are known by God. We cannot escape the dragnet of death which for us is the end of worldliness. 

We are not going to be reworked by a potter but we will be judged by our deeds in this our only life and the same sweet, kindly Jesus "come to me for I am gentle and lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your souls" is not a "soft touch" but the crystal clear Justice of God although tempered by the mercy which we can all invoke. We only have one choice yes or no for God.

We can all also hope that "Hell is empty" but God cannot lie; "there will be weeping and grinding of teeth" is a strict warning from our merciful Saviour. It tells us that we are responsible for our own choices and that we are free to choose a way of life that will end either in joy, the infinite moment of knowing God, or in its alternative disaster from which there is no return.

Dear Lord, help me to do your will and condemn the sin that has dirtied my soul. Let me be overcome by the Love/ Grace/ Hope/ and Sorrow that is the mixture of feelings the Holy Spirit inspires within me. Out of this mix I can find Faith Hope and Charity to address you directly in prayer knowing that my words are encouraged by the unity of my prayer with that of the faithful on earth, your saints in heaven and Mary the mother of us all including the Holy Souls who are in the atoning safety of Purgatory.